Restaurants and other food service establishments are increasingly relying on freshly ground coffee beans to achieve high quality brewed coffee. The restaurants are also making different amounts of coffee at different times, based on anticipated demand. Further, the restaurants are brewing various kinds of coffee, for example, decaffeinated coffee and expresso coffee in addition to regular coffee. As a result, the typical restaurant kitchen has several different coffee makers of varying brand and/or capacity. These coffee makers generally employ a brew basket which receives and holds ground coffee, with hot water being passed through the ground coffee beans to realize the brewed coffee.
The brew baskets are similar in principles of construction, namely, they comprise a generally cylindrical upper side wall, which may or may not taper inwardly toward the bottom of the brew basket, and have a radially outwardly extending flange or lip about the upper periphery of the side wall, the lip being used in supporting the brew baskets on their respective coffee makers. A handle is also typically provided for placing the brew basket in or out of its operative position. Although the brew baskets have the same general configuration, they have various diameters, often depending on the brand and/or capacity of the coffee maker.
A coffee grinder is used to process the coffee beans into ground coffee, and a restaurant generally has only one coffee grinder. It may be a free-standing coffee grinder having provision for loading coffee beans into a feed spout thereof, or the coffee grinder may be part of a coffee bean weighing and grinding apparatus such as is described in my co-pending patent application entitled COMBINED COFFEE WEIGHER AND GRINDER WITH SELECTABLE MEASURED QUANTITIES, Ser. No. 07/100039, filed on even date herewith. In either case, it will be appreciated that the process of brewing coffee can be made more convenient and expeditious by providing means for supporting any one of a variety of sizes of coffee brew baskets below the coffee grinder to receive the ground coffee output.